Thursday, 30 November 2017

Please consider signing the petition to save Nuntii Latini, the world's only weekly Latin language news broadcast. We forward to you an appeal issued by Tuuli Ahlholm:

"May I draw your attention to a petition that is being circulated against the cancellation of Nuntii Latini. As I'm sure most of you know, Nuntii Latini is a weekly news bulletin in Latin. It has been made for 28 years by the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) and broadcasted on national radio every Friday at 18:15. Every episode is made available online with vocabulary glossary in English, German, and Finnish, which has made it a very popular teaching tool all over the world. The past episodes are available here.

The programme is now in danger of getting cancelled permanently and against the wishes of the long-standing team behind it. The reason is - as it always tends to be - budget cuts; but, as the programme costs next to nothing to make, the decision seems especially unfair. The article about the cancellation can be found on YLE’s website.

We, the undersigned, believe that the discontinuation of Nuntii Latini is extremely short-sighted.Nuntii Latini has done invaluable work in keeping a ‘dead’ language current, vivid, and creative for every new generation of Latinists. It is one of the very few existing platforms for Neo-Latin - perhaps only the Vatican can boast of a more substantial outreach impact today! During its 28 years, Nuntii Latini has come to be a source of pride for a small Northern nation: an internationally recognised bastion of Finnish classical learning and our common European heritage. The cancellation of a cultural institution like Nuntii Latini feels particularly misguided now in December 2017, when Finnish culture and science is being celebrated all over the world in recognition of Finland’s 100th year of independence (6.12. 1917).

The petition has already collected some 1,000 signatures from Latinists all over the world - but the more the better, of course. The petition can be found here in Latin, English, and Finnish."

Tuesday, 28 November 2017

Please take note of the following obituary for Stefan Radt, written by André Lardinois:

"It is with sadness that I announce the passing away of Professor Stefan Radt, professor emeritus at Groningen University. He died on November 22 of a ruptured aorta at the age of 90. Professor Radt was born in Germany, but moved with his family to the Netherlands in 1937 to avoid Nazi prosecution. He survived the war by going into hiding between February 1943 and May 1945. It is here that he taught himself ancient Greek, using his old school books and reading Homer. After the war he studied Classics at the University of Amsterdam, where he also defended his dissertation on Pindars Zweiter und Sechster Paian(1958). Between 1967 and 1987 he held the post of professor of ancient Greek language and literature at the university of Groningen. He will probably best be remembered for his editions of the fragments of Aeschylus and Sophocles (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmentaparts 4 [1977] and 3 [1985]), as well as a new text with German translation of the Geographica of Strabo, the last volume of which he finished only six years ago at age 84. In 2010 he received an honorary doctorate of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster for his scholarly work, but also for the fact that despite his experiences he did not disavow Germany or the German language. Professor Radt was a remarkable man, who contributed greatly to the study of Classics in the Netherlands."

Monday, 20 November 2017

This week, we would like to let you know that "the Department for Classical Studies of the University of Cologne is now accepting applications for the 2018 "German for Students of Classical Studies" summer course. The course will take place from June 4 to July 13. It is specially designed to meet the linguistic needs of students of the Classics who wish to expand their knowledge of written and spoken academic German.The program includes a language class, reading tutorials, field trips to archaeological sites in the Rhineland and the opportunity to take part in the academic life of the Classics department of the University of Cologne.